Michelle Malkin

Author, Columnist, Entrepreneur

Michelle Malkin is among the nation’s most-prominent conservative authors, bloggers, columnists, and entrepreneurs. She began her career in newspaper journalism with the Los Angeles Daily News, where she worked as an editorial writer and weekly columnist from 1992 to 1994.

In 1995, she was named Warren Brookes Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. In 1996, she joined the editorial board of the Seattle Times, where she penned editorials and weekly columns for three years.

The daughter of Filipino immigrants, Malkin was born in Philadelphia in 1970 and was raised in southern New Jersey. She has worked as a press inserter, tax preparation aide, and network news librarian. She is also a lapsed classical pianist. She lives with her husband and two children in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

[Photo: Jonah Koch]

M. Stanton Evans

Journalist, Author, Educator

M. Stanton Evans is an American journalist, author, and educator, and winner of the 2014 Heartland Liberty Prize awarded by The Heartland Institute.

Evans graduated magna cum laude from Yale University, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1955, with a B.A. in English, followed by graduate work in economics at New York University under Ludwig von Mises. He has been awarded honorary doctorates from Syracuse University, John Marshall Law School, Grove City College, and Francisco Marroquín University.

Upon graduation he became assistant editor of The Freeman, and the following year he joined the staff of William F. Buckley’s fledgling National Review (where he served as associate editor from 1960 to 1973) and became managing editor of Human Events, where he is currently a contributing editor.

In 1959, Evans became head editorial writer of The Indianapolis News, rising to editor the following year — at 26, the nation’s youngest editor of a metropolitan daily newspaper — a position he held until 1974. In 1960 he was present at the founding of Young Americans for Freedom and drafted YAF’s charter, the Sharon Statement.

Evans has worked as commentator for the CBS Television and Radio Networks, National Public Radio, the Voice of America, Radio America and WGMS-FM in Washington, D.C. He was also a nationally syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times syndicate.

Evans has served as chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU), president of the Philadelphia Society, a trustee of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and founder and director of the National Journalism Center. In 1980, he became an adjunct professor of journalism at Troy University in Troy, Alabama, where he currently holds the Buchanan Chair of Journalism.

Master of Ceremonies: Joe Walsh

Talk Show Host on AM 560 The Answer, former Congressman

The Hon. Joe Walsh was born and raised in North Barrington, Illinois, the fifth child of nine children. He graduated from Barrington High School, attended Grinnell College and earned a BA in English from the University of Iowa.

Elected to the United States Congress in the Tea Party Wave of 2010, Walsh refused his Congressional health benefits and pensions, slept in his office, limited himself to no more than three terms in office, and held more town halls than any member of Congress.

He was one of the most outspoken and well known Tea Party members of Congress, becoming a lead advocate for the Balanced Budget Amendment, term limits, tax cuts, cutting off pay for Members of Congress if they fail to pass a budget, Second Amendment Rights, and the State of Israel. He served on the Small Business Committee, the Committee on Homeland Security, and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

He is currently host of the Joe Walsh Show on AM 560 The Answer in Chicago, Monday through Friday, on the coveted afternoon drive slot from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. He is also the Founder of WalshFreedom, Illinois’ largest grassroots army of freedom fighters, dedicated to helping to elect limited government candidates at all levels of government. You can follow Walsh on Twitter: @walshfreedom.

Walsh lives in Wauconda, Illinois with his wife Helene. Between them they have five children.